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Surfin’: A New “Old” User Interface for SDR

This week, Surfin’ visits a blog where ham radio tradition and cutting edge meet head on.

Tobias Wellnitz, DH1TW, recently concluded a year-long project to provide a new, but old user interface for SDR (software-defined radio). No fan of controlling SDR with a computer mouse and keyboard, Tobias sought something else.

While visiting a consumer electronics store, he came across a disc jockey console -- a digital device that replaces the traditional analog turntables that DJs used to spin vinyl back in the Triassic Period. With two big turn wheels, more than 20 buttons and almost 10 knobs, Tobias thought that the console could provide a traditional radio look and feel if he could just interface it to SDR.

Tobias spent the past year doing just that; he successfully interfaced a Hercules DJ console to FlexRadio’s PowerSDR open source software.